Guest Writer: Brittney Perreault
Northwest Wine Night TV Senior Producer
I love wine. But it wasn’t until I was pregnant that I found an appreciation for chocolate. I know, what kind of girl doesn’t like chocolate? Wine and chocolate are like the adult PB&J, you can’t have one without the other.
If you’re a wine and chocolate person, you must check out Chocolate Box, located near Pike Place in downtown Seattle. It opened in June of 2007, originally as a chocolate and sweets shop. Fast forward to present day and Chocolate Box offers a perfect combination where you can enjoy 50 assorted lines of chocolates and 150 different wines, many from the Northwest.
Chocolate Box offers three great wine and chocolate experiences with “Chocolate! Wonderful Chocolate”, “Truffle Class”, and “Wine and Chocolate Experience”. I grabbed a girlfriend and we spent 3 hours in class with General Manager, Catherine Davila. She had a wealth of knowledge and was a hoot! One of her tasting tips was, “take a pit stop and really taste it. Don’t just throw it down the drain!” We covered everything from types of wine glasses, how to open sparkling wine the right way to taste, pairing wine with food (and chocolate), wine temperature, and aeration. We tasted 8 wines, and paired some with specialty chocolate. These aren’t your average foil wrapped s’mores chocolate bars either. Have you ever had lemon pepper white chocolate, or coconut curry cashews? You should, because they were DELICIOUS!
I asked Catherine the tough question, to pick a favorite pairing, “My two favorites are: Forte’s Gusto Lemon Pepper white chocolate paired with Harper Voit 2012 Maresh Vineyard Old Vine Riesling, and the red wine pairing is Pink Peony’s Columbian Double Dark truffle paired with Den Hoed Wallull Vineyards “Andreas” 2011 Cabernet Sauvignon.” Yum!
Chocolate Box does more than the classes, they host many corporate events, private parties, and team building classes. They also create corporate gift boxes/baskets. And, they have one of the best, most unusual wine clubs around. Each club member has a specific profile sheet listing their varietal preferences, at each quarterly release, they build the customers’ wine package around their specifications, choosing from their vast selection of wines rather than limiting to a specific winery.
I really enjoyed my Wine and Chocolate Experience as did my friend that joined me, she called it, “The perfect way to spend a Sunday afternoon. Deliciously entertaining.” I couldn’t agree more! Cheers!